VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Automated vehicles at Tuas Port will be getting a 5G upgrade, so they can track the movement of cargo from berths to ships in real time.

VOInews, Singapore : Port operator PSA Singapore is gearing up for the year ahead with more advanced technology.  Automated vehicles at Tuas Port will be getting a 5G upgrade so they can track the movement of cargo from berths to ships in real time, with the help of telcos Singtel and Ericsson.

PSA’s moves are in line with plans to build the world’s largest fully automated port in about two decades to meet the rapidly rising demand for global trans-shipment. 

Over the next three years, PSA will also be exploring 5G applications in areas such as predictive maintenance, which involves drone-based surveillance and extended reality applications.

This will help the operator to detect potential issues in a more timely fashion and pre-empt equipment failure, improving efficiency and reducing costly downtime.

Such advanced solutions could come in handy in the event of incidents that shocked the sector earlier this year, like the Red Sea attacks.

Firms will have to continue cushioning themselves against geopolitical tensions, supply chain diversification and the impact of technology including artificial intelligence, said Associate Professor Goh Puay Guan from the Department of Analytics and Operations at the National University of Singapore Business School.

He added that uncertainties remain over the resilience of global supply chains, given the promise of tariffs from Donald Trump who will be sworn in as the United States president next month.

Trump late last month pledged big tariffs on the country’s three largest trading partners - Canada, Mexico and China.

He said he would impose a 25 per cent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico until they clamp down on fentanyl and migrants crossing the border.

He also outlined an additional 10 per cent tariff on imports from China. He had previously said he would end China's most-favoured-nation trading status and slap tariffs on Chinese imports of over 60 per cent - much higher than those imposed during his first term.

Companies in the US will stockpile in anticipation of an increase in tariffs, said Assoc Prof Goh. 

“In the short term, that may actually cause a spike in imports and therefore, potentially shipping rates will go up in the short term,” he added.

Firms will also have to prepare for changes in government regulations along with the leadership transition in America.

“Potentially with US regulations changing with the new administration, it could also mean that there's a little bit more volatility when companies need to react very quickly to changes in government regulations between countries or changes in tariff structures,” said Assoc Prof Goh//CNA-VOI

FILE PHOTO: Words reading "Artificial intelligence AI", miniature of robot and toy hand are pictured in this illustration taken December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

VOInews, Ottawa : Canada's federal government has considered making up to $15 billion available as an incentive to encourage major domestic pension funds to invest in AI data centres powered by green energy, the Globe and Mail reported on Thursday.

Ottawa floated the proposal in private consultation with pension funds as part of a suite of potential measures in consideration to be included in its fall economic statement, the report added citing sources with knowledge of the discussions.

Artificial intelligence tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT depend on chips and energy. But a $1 trillion rush to build data centres faces constraints on planning and power globally.

Last month, utilities, power regulators and researchers in a half-dozen countries told Reuters the surprising growth in power demand driven by the rise of AI and cloud computing is being met in the near-term by fossil fuels like natural gas, and even coal, because the pace of clean-energy deployments is moving too slowly to keep up//CNA-VOI

US President Joe Biden hosts Kennedy Center honorees in the East Room at the White House in Washington, on Dec 8, 2024. (Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno)

VOInews, Washington D.C : US President Joe Biden on Thursday (Dec 12) released a long-awaited strategy for countering anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate, up sharply since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, calling for urgent, continued work to reduce discrimination and bias.

The 64-page document, which maps out more than 100 executive branch actions, comes weeks before the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, who imposed a travel ban on people from some majority Muslim countries during his first term that Biden rescinded on his first day in office.

It mirrors a comprehensive strategy to fight antisemitism released by the White House in September 2023, and comes more than a year after death of six-year-old boy Wadea Al-Fayoume, stabbed by a man who targeted him and his mother because they were Palestinian-American.

In a foreword to the strategy, Biden called the attacks on the Chicago boy and his mother "heinous acts" and noted a spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes, discrimination and bullying that he called wrong and unacceptable.

"Muslims and Arabs deserve to live with dignity and enjoy every right to the fullest extent along with all of their fellow Americans," Biden wrote. "Policies that result in discrimination against entire communities are wrong and fail to keep us safe."

The Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, called the strategy "too little, too late" and faulted the White House for not promising any changes to a federal watchlist and "no-fly" list that includes many Arab and Muslim Americans, and for failing to end the war in Gaza, which has been driving Islamophobia.

Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, predicted the incoming Trump administration would disown the strategy, but welcomed the White House's expansion to include anti-Arab hate instead of focusing solely on acts directed against Muslims.

The Trump transition team had no immediate comment on the strategy or whether it would support it.

Trump, who won support from some Muslim voters angry about Biden's support for Israel's war in Gaza, has said he will ban entry to the US of anyone who questions Israel's right to exist and revoke visas of foreign students who are "antisemitic."

Tensions between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups surged on some US campuses after the Oct 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, with human rights advocates warning of rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate//CNA-VOI

French President Emmanuel Macron waits for the arrival of a guest at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Dec 9, 2024. (PHOTO: REUTERS/Kevin Coombs)

VOInews, Paris : President Emmanuel Macron is to name a new prime minister on Friday (Dec 12), aides said, after days of deadlock over finding a candidate to replace Michel Barnier whose ousting by parliament pushed France into a fresh crisis.

Barnier was toppled in a historic no-confidence vote on December 4 and there had been expectations Macron would announce his successor in an address to the nation even a day later. 

But in a sign of the stalemate in French politics after inconclusive legislative elections this summer, he did not name his successor then and has now missed a 48-hour deadline he gave at a meeting meeting of party leaders on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Macron left France on a day-long trip to key EU and NATO ally Poland but shortened the visit in an apparent bid to finalise the appointment.

"The statement naming the prime minister will be published tomorrow (Friday) morning," said an aide to to the president, asking not to be named, late Thursday just after Macron touched down from the trip to Poland.

"He is finishing his consultations," the aide added, without giving further details.

Whoever is named will be the sixth prime minister of Macron's mandate after the toppling of Barnier, who lasted only three months, and faces an immediate challenge in thrashing out a budget to pass parliament.

Each premier under Macron has served successively less time in office and there is no guarantee for the new premier that they will not follow this pattern.

Macron remains confronted with the complex political equation that emerged from the snap parliamentary polls - how to secure a government against a no-confidence vote in a bitterly divided lower house where no party or alliance has a majority.

All the candidates widely floated so far have encountered objections from at least one side of the political spectrum.

Macron's rumoured top pick, veteran centrist Francois Bayrou, raises hackles on the left - wary of continuing the president's policies - and on the right, where he is disliked by influential former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Beyond Bayrou, prime ministerial contenders include former Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve, current Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, a Macron loyalist, and former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Another name being discussed in the media is Roland Lescure, a former industry minister, but the nomination of the former Socialist risks inflaming the right.

Polls indicate the public is fed up with the crisis. Just over two-thirds of respondents to one Elabe poll published on Wednesday said they want politicians to reach a deal not to overthrow a new government.

But confidence is limited, with around the same number saying they did not believe the political class could reach agreement.

In a separate IFOP poll, far-right National Rally (RN) figurehead Marine Le Pen was credited with 35 per cent support in the first round of a future presidential election - well ahead of any likely opponent.

She has said she is "not unhappy" that her far-right party was left out of the horse-trading around the government, appearing for now to benefit from the chaos rather than suffer blame for bringing last week's no-confidence vote over the line//CNA-VOI